Russian Film Symposium to Examine Gender Stereotypes

PITTSBURGH—The University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Filmmakers will present the 16th Annual Russian Film Symposium from May 5 through May 10 at Pitt’s campus and Pittsburgh Filmmakers’ Melwood Screening Room in Oakland. Titled “Gendering Genre,” this year’s Russian Film Symposium offers a unique chance for the public to view recent films and examine how gender and genre stereotypes are foregrounded and subverted in recent Russian cinema.

Russian movie theaters are now dominated almost exclusively by two genres: romantic comedies (usually set in Moscow or Saint Petersburg) and gritty dramas about everyday life (usually set in the provinces). These two genres are often coded as either “woman friendly” (in the case of the romantic comedies) or “masculine” (in the case of the dramas). A host of esteemed scholars and critics of Russian film, traveling from Russia, the United Kingdom, and across the United States, will attend the symposium to introduce the films and examine the theory that there is a division along gender lines in Russian cinema.

Among the noted critics set to introduce the symposium’s films are Viktoriia Belopol'skaia, programming director of the ArtDocFest film festival and a regular contributor to the film journals Séance and Iskusstvo kino; Anzhelika Artiukh, a film scholar and film critic whose reviews have appeared in Iskusstvo kino, Séance, Film Comment, and Imago; Philip Cavendish, author of The Men with a Movie Camera: The Poetics of Visual Style in Soviet Avant-Garde Cinema of the 1920s (Berghahn Books, 2013); and Jeremy Hicks, a specialist in Russian documentary cinema and the author of First Films of the Holocaust: Soviet Cinema and the Genocide of the Jews, 1938–1946 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012).

After each screening, a guest speaker, Pitt faculty member, or Pitt graduate student will lead a discussion in response to the film. All films will have English subtitles. Admission costs for the duration of the symposium are $8 for regular admission, $7 for seniors and students, and $4 for Pitt and Art Institute of Pittsburgh students. The schedule of film screenings follows.

Monday, May 5Till Night Do Us Part (2012)Directed by Boris Khlebnikov

A journalist eavesdrops on conversations at one of Moscow’s most exclusive restaurants in this romantic comedy.

Through a series of interlinking plots that revolve around Ivan, a photographer with a passion for freedom, Intimate Parts explores middle-class attitudes toward sex and secrecy.

7:30 p.m. May 7, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland

Introduction and response: Anzhelika Artiukh, film criticism instructor, Saint-Petersburg University of Film and Television

Thursday, May 8She (2013)Directed by Larissa Sadilova

Featuring a cast of mostly amateur actors from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, She traces the fortunes of a young woman who follows her significant other to Russia from Tajikistan, exploring the conditions of migrant workers.

10 a.m. May 8, Room 1500, Posvar Hall, 230 S. Bouquet St., Oakland

Introduction: Jeremy Hicks, faculty member in Russian culture and film, Queen Mary University of London

Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari (2012)Directed by Aleksei Fedorchenko

Shot in the Mari language, this comedy-drama consists of 26 stories influenced by the folklore of the Mari, an ethnic group living along the Volga River often called “the last authentic pagans living in Europe.”

Recent university graduate Eva has a new job, friends, and a doting boyfriend. But fearing a predictable life with marriage and children, she dumps her boyfriend and embarks on a string of dating mishaps in this self-aware romantic comedy.

7:30 p.m. May 9, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland

Introduction and response: Philip Cavendish, senior lecturer in Russian literature and film studies, University College London

Saturday, May 10Living (2011)Directed by Vasilii Sigarev

A meditation on the presence of death in life, the award-winning Living weaves together stories of Russian families challenged by death.

7:30 p.m. May 10, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland

Introduction and response: Viktoriia Belopol’skaia, film critic and programming director of ArtDocFest

The Russian Film Symposium is supported by the University of Pittsburgh Office of the Dean of the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, the University Center for International Studies, the Center for Russian and East European Studies, the Humanities Center, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, the Program for Cultural Studies, the Graduate Russian Kino Club, and a grant from the Hewlett Foundation. Pittsburgh Filmmakers is a cosponsor of the symposium.